Our Politicians and Pundits Should Take a Page From Socrates

Xenophon

Ah, the things you unexpectedly run across learning about an unfamiliar topic.  Ancient Greece, for instance.  Looking through Xenophon's Memorabilia, his recollections of Socrates (Xenophon was a pupil of Socrates) for what he says about Socrates and the failure of Athenian democracy, I can across the following delightful passage in Book Three, Chapter Six in which Socrates persuades a young hothead to learn something about public policy before running for office:

Ariston's son, Glaucon, was attempting to become an orator and striving for headship in the state, though he was less than twenty years old; and none of his friends or relations could check him, though he would get himself dragged from the platform and make himself a laughing-stock. Only Socrates, who took an interest in him for the sake of Plato and Glaucon's son Charmides, managed to check him. 

For once on meeting him, he stopped him and contrived to engage his attention by saying: “Glaucon, have you made up your mind to be our chief man in the state?” 

“I have, Socrates." 

“Well, upon my word there's no more honourable ambition in the world; for obviously, if you gain your object, you will be able to get whatever you want, and you will have the means of helping your friends: you will lift up your father's house and exalt your fatherland; and you will make a name for yourself first at home, later on in Greece, and possibly, like Themistocles, in foreign lands as well; wherever you go, you will be a man of mark.” 

 When Glaucon heard this, he felt proud and gladly lingered.

Next Socrates asked, “Well, Glaucon, as you want to win honour, is it not obvious that you must benefit your city?" 

“Most certainly.” 

“Pray don't be reticent, then; but tell us how you propose to begin your services to the state." 

As Glaucon remained dumb, apparently considering for the first time how to begin,Socrates said: “If you wanted to add to a friend's fortune, you would set about making him richer. Will you try, then, to make your city richer?" 

“Certainly.” 

“Would she not be richer if she had a larger revenue?” 

“Oh yes, presumably.” 

“Now tell me, from what sources are the city's revenues at present derived and what is their total? No doubt you have gone into this matter, in order to raise the amount of any that are deficient and supply any that are lacking.” 

“Certainly not,” exclaimed Glaucon, “I haven't gone into that.” 

“Well, if you have left that out, tell us the expenditure of the city. No doubt you intend to cut down any items that are excessive.” 

“The fact is, I haven't had time yet for that either.” 

“Oh, then we will postpone the business of making the city richer; for how is it possible to look after income and expenditure without knowing what they are?” 

“Well, Socrates, one can make our enemies contribute to the city's wealth.” 

“Yes, of course, provided he is stronger than they; but if he be weaker, he may lose what she has got instead.” 

“True.” 

“Therefore, in order to advise her whom to fight, it is necessary to know the strength of the city and of the enemy, so that, if the city be stronger, one may recommend her to go to war, but if weaker than the enemy, may persuade her to beware.” 

“You are right.” 

“First, then, tell us the naval and military strength of our city, and then that of her enemies.” 

“No, of course I can't tell you out of my head.” 

“Well, if you have made notes, fetch them, for I should greatly like to hear this.” 

“But, I tell you, I haven't yet made any notes either.” 

“Then we will postpone offering advice about war too for the present. You are new to power, and perhaps have not had time to investigate such big problems. But the defence of the country, now, I feel sure you have thought about that, and know how many of the garrisons are well placed and how many are not, and how many of the guards are efficient and how many are not; and you will propose to strengthen the well-placed garrisons and to do away with those that are superfluous.” 

“No, no; I shall propose to do away with them all, for the only effect of maintaining them is that our crops are stolen.” 

“But if you do away with the garrisons, don't you think that anyone will be at liberty to rob us openly? However, have you been on a tour of inspection, or how do you know that they are badly maintained?” 

“By guess-work.” 

“Then shall we wait to offer advice on this question too until we really know, instead of merely guessing?” 

“Perhaps it would be better.” 

“Now for the silver mines. I am sure you have not visited them, and so cannot tell why the amount derived from them has fallen.” 

“No, indeed, I have not been there.” 

“To be sure: the district is considered unhealthy, and so when you have to offer advice on the problem, this excuse will serve.” 

“You're chaffing me.” 

“Ah, but there's one problem I feel sure you haven't overlooked: no doubt you have reckoned how long the corn grown in the country will maintain the population, and how much is needed annually, so that you may not be caught napping, should the city at any time be short, and may come to the rescue and relieve the city by giving expert advice about food.” 

“What an overwhelming task, if one has got to include such things as that in one's duties!” 

“But, you know, no one will ever manage even his own household successfully unless he knows all its needs and sees that they are all supplied. Seeing that our city contains more than ten thousand houses, and it is difficult to look after so many families at once, you must have tried to make a start by doing something for one, I mean your uncle's? It needs it; and if you succeed with that one, you can set to work on a larger number. But if you can't do anything for one, how are you going to succeed with many? If a man can't carry one talent, it's absurd for him to try to carry more than one, isn't it?” 

“Well, I could do something for uncle's household if only he would listen to me.” 

“What? You can't persuade your uncle, and yet you suppose you will be able to persuade all the Athenians, including your uncle, to listen to you? Pray take care, Glaucon, that your daring ambition doesn't lead to a fall! Don't you see how risky it is to say or do what you don't understand? Think of others whom you know to be the sort of men who say and do what they obviously don't understand. Do you think they get praise or blame by it? And think of those who understand what they say and what they do. You will find, I take it, that the men who are famous and admired always come from those who have the widest knowledge, and the infamous and despised from the most ignorant. Therefore, if you want to win fame and admiration in public life, try to get a thorough knowledge of what you propose to do. If you enter on a public career with this advantage over others, I should not be surprised if you gained the object of your ambition quite easily.”

This should be required reading for all Presidential candidates!  I also highly recommend it for all pundits interviewing candidates or moderating debates.  Maybe they should use them as a model for questions to ask the candidates.

Donald Trump and the Black Vote

But in large part, the real purpose of my last post was to counter a rather foolish article in Cracked, 5 Ways Donald Trump Perfectly Mirrors Hitler's Rise to Power.  In particular, the author's fears that Trump will win by courting the black vote.  I wouldn't worry too much.

Obviously, the first way the author compares Trump to Hitler is that he scapegoats an ethnic minority.  And here I completely agree -- Trump should be condemned for that.  Of course, there is the tiny little difference that Trump does not have storm troopers intimidating his opponents by violence, so he really can't reasonably be compared to Hitler.  But ethnic scapegoating is in all cases an ugly business that appeals to people's basest instincts and ought certainly to be condemned.

The second point is rather a different matter.  "He'll sell his hate as hope for the poorest citizens in this country."  In other words, Trump is attempting to appeal to black voters by telling them that the illegal immigrants are stealing their jobs, and that black people might fall for it.  Naturally, the author sees this as dirty pool.

In this, the author is wrong on all points.  First of all, while Hitler did, indeed, peddle hate as hope, what really brought him to power was neither hate nor hope, but fear.  It is true that it was the Great Depression and 25% unemployment that brought Hitler to power, but it is not true that his votes were coming from the unemployed.  Hitler's share of the uncoerced vote peaked at 37%, but only 13% of the unemployed.  His appeal was to people who feared losing what they had, especially their jobs. The unemployed and others with nothing to lose were more likely to vote for the Communists.

Next, although liberals tend to see playing black against brown as dirty pool, it really isn't.  Seeking to attract the support of a promising ethnic group is politics as usual.  And have-not versus have-not rivalry is both normal and normally ugly.  Try, for instance, reading about black-Irish relations in the US in the 19th Century.  Not pleasant.

And as for whether this will appeal to black voters, the whole point of my last post is that black voters aren't all that interested in employment and bread-and-butter issues so much as in police-community relations.  Besides, what is Trump promising our inner cities:

Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum seekers to crack down on abuses.  Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.

Does this sound like something that would appeal to black voters?  Placing children in "safer homes an communities" sounds very much like taking black children out of their communities, a thing the communities are apt to find threatening.  (Presumably even children without parents have grand parents and other relatives).  "Improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods" sounds very much like a police crackdown on black neighborhoods.

Even less likely to be appealing to black people is point three on the list, that Trump plans to fight gun violence by tougher mandatory minimum sentences for people who commit gun crimes.  Given that mandatory minimums are a major reason so many black people are in prison now, that doesn't exactly sound like a good way to win the black vote.  Oh yes, and he calls for crackdowns on crime in violent cities like Chicago and Baltimore.  "Chicago and Baltimore."  I can hear the code there.  Do you think black people can't?

Then the article descends into simple paranoia.

Nonetheless, I can think of other reasons why Trump is not going to win the black vote.  In the last election, he tried to win the nomination by going birther.  Do you think black people have forgotten? I don't.  His overall tone and style is a pander to the white working class one that does not appeal to black voters.  Campaign Zero classifies his plan to triple the number of immigration officers to identify, detain and deport illegal immigrants as harmful.  This is actually one police crackdown that is unlikely to affect black people much at all.  But general distrust of police intrusiveness is high enough to raise concerns for black people even if someone else is the target.

And suppose Trump does decide to pander to black voters.  What do you think he will do?  My guess is, do exactly what he does to pander to anyone else.  I Black Lives Matter activists ask him what he intends to do about police brutality, he will say that he as heard it is terrible, but under a Trump presidency he will put an end to it.  Somehow I don't think that will be convincing.

Bernie Sanders, Black Voters and Republicans

I know I have covered this issue before, but I seem to have the urge to come back to it.  It is a regular conservative complaint that black people only support the Democrats because they offer free stuff.  If there is one thing that Occupy Wall Street, Bernie Sanders, and Black Lives Matter should prove, it is that that is not true.

Take Occupy Wall Street.  They addressed in particular bread-and-butter issues of economic hardship, unemployment, foreclosures, and the like.  Their motto "We are the 99%" was intended as one of inclusion -- people of all races and ethnicities are oppressed alike by Big Money.  Black people suffered disproportionately from unemployment and foreclosures.  But Occupy Wall Street remained resolutely white.  Its bizarre antics no doubt went a long way toward driving off potential allies.  So, no doubt, did the perception that it was just a bunch of whiny college kids upset at not getting top-of-the-line jobs right out of college.

But it also seems fair to say that a lot of black people did not want to hear about an undifferentiated 99% all equally oppressed by the 1%.  Being regularly pulled aside, frisked, and singled out for attention was not the experience of the 99%; it was the experience of the black minority.  Nor could the 1% credibly be blamed for the harassment black people were experiencing.

Republicans debate who is the true Tea Party candidate, but can anyone doubt that Bernie Sanders is the true Occupy Wall Street candidate on the Democratic side?  He talks about a more equal distribution of income, about raising minimum wage, about making education, health care, and opportunity more readily available.  He implies (without quite saying) that these can bring back the good paying blue collar jobs of yesteryear.  But black people aren't interested in those things.  They are a whole lot more interested in abusive cops and an extortionist criminal justice system.

Ultimately, black people's top concerns are not about bread-and-butter issues, but about race and the coercive power of the state.  In the clear light of hindsight, maybe that shouldn't be so surprising.

Think in terms of the hierarchy of needs.  Or imagine yourself living in a slum in some Third World country.  Government is corrupt and stifles dissent, your neighborhood is one of hovels and open sewers and garbage dumps and armed gangs (sometimes police, sometimes drug traffickers) drive through your neighborhood, harassing, extorting, and sometimes beating or killing residents.  What is your top priority?  Probably stopping the armed gangs and ensuring basic safety.  Better housing and cleaning up sewers and garbage dumps will probably only become top concerns when basic physical safety stops being an issue.  And worrying about corruption and dissent is far off in the distance.

So it is, in milder fashion, with Black lives matter.  It would appear, that in the taxonomy of property rights/political rights/civil rights, bread-and-butter issues and economic equality fits more into the category of political rights/majority rule than the category of minority rights.  Besides, as this article comments, the political rights/majority rule populist approach is poorly suited to defending minority rights:

Arguably, plebiscitary appeals about crime and punishment have contributed to the policies that created mass incarceration. Furthermore, economic populism identifies economic elites as the cause of the problem, stealing the American Dream from ordinary citizens. The intellectual foundations of the BLM movement implicate the majority and the American Dream.

So how are Republicans responding to all this?  Are they relieved to learn that black people really are less interested in free stuff than in being left alone by the state?

There is some favorable response in the more libertarian precincts of spectrum.  Although Campaign Zero no longer has an evaluation of Rand Paul, he had useful suggestions of four of their ten proposals -- coming in ahead of Hillary Clinton with two.  Marco Rubio has made at least some sympathetic comments.

But by and large, most Republicans' hostility to the state does not extend to its more coercive and punitive aspects.  The are "core functions" and not seen as part of Big Government.  And the main conservative reaction to black people wanting relief from the state in its more punitive aspects is, once again, to call for more individual responsibility.  Or rather, more collective responsibility.  Any singling-out black people in general receive is understandable in light of high black crime rates.  Bring down those crime rates, and the problem will go away.  A particular black person may be very individually responsible and refrain from crime and violence and still be singled out because of his race.  By all means, we do need black people to make a more concerted effort to bring down black crime rates, but no individual can do so alone -- nor will individual virtue necessarily be rewarded in this case.  That is not a comfortable message to most Republicans.

So, What if the Republicans Win Next Year

So, what do I expect to happen if the Republicans do win the White House next year?  They will hold all levers of power in the federal government and have a free hand to do whatever they want.  What will they actually do?

Well, first and foremost, my guess is that they will lose all interest in deficit cutting, and all resistance to raising the debt ceiling.  Deficits only matter when a Democrat is in the White House.  Hardliners will no doubt be convinced to raise the debt ceiling on the theory that it will take some time to correct eight years of Democrat profligacy.  And even if they vote no, a solid Republican majority will vote yes, so problem solved.

Pressure will be strong to repeal Obamacare.  I think it unlikely that they will actually do it, because repealing Obamacare will mean stripping ten to twenty million people of their health insurance overnight.  Too risky.  More likely, they will repeal the individual mandate.  The individual mandate is unpopular, so repealing it should be easy.  This will have the result of encouraging people not to buy insurance until they are sick, thereby raising prices, driving out healthy people, and driving prices even higher.  Death spiral!  Of course, it will be impolitic to openly come out in favor of causing insurance prices to spiral out of most people's price range!  Better be careful of letting your memos leak!  Republicans can hope to a considerable extent even to escape blame for spiraling prices.  Just blame it on Obamacare!  On the other hand, if prices spiral too high while they are in power, they may come under pressure to do something about them.

Having wrecked the exchanges, Republicans will then probably proceed to block grant Medicaid, and probably most other programs for the poor.  This will allow them to avoid immediate catastrophe, which they would be blamed for, and instead, slowly squeeze these programs to death by underfunding, while letting the states be blamed.

I do not expect Republicans to touch Social Security or Medicare.  That is simply too unpopular, even if only future beneficiaries are to be affected.

They will certainly escalate any number of conflicts in the Middle East.  They will probably try to avoid a full-scale ground war.  But when each escalation fails to produce the desired results, ground war is a very real possibility.

And obviously, they will make huge tax cuts that blow a hole in the budget.  Marco Rubio, one of the saner Republican candidates, plans to cut taxes by about a quarter.  And also to increase defense spending, not touch Social Security and Medicare for current beneficiaries, and pass a balanced budget amendment.  In theory, to do all those things and meet the interest on the national debt, he would have to cut all other spending to -- zero.  Of course, that won't happen.  More likely, Republicans in power will pass a massive, budget-busting tax cut.  They will attempt to pass a balanced budget amendment, be blocked by Democrats, and denounce liberal profligacy.  They will then make tiny but much-trumpeted cuts in spending and cheerfully coast along by borrowing until the next time a Democrat is elected, at which point they will freak out over those massive deficits and blame them on big-spending Democrats.

Republicans justify tax cuts on two grounds:

1. They spur such economic growth that revenue actually increases and there is no need for spending cuts.
2. They choke off revenue and thereby force a fiscal crisis and "starve the beast."

Obviously these can't both be true.  But they make a great game of head-I-win-tails-you-lose.  If tax cuts increase revenues, great, it avoids hard choices.  If they reduce revenue, great, we want a fiscal crisis anyhow.  Let's just hope it takes place with a Democrat in power.  And, in fact, the government has shown remarkable ability to borrow in seemingly unlimited amounts without consequences. Fiscal crises are largely a matter of choice.  Which works even better for Republicans.  Coast along borrowing as long as you want so long as you control the White House.  Once the Democrats commit the unspeakable outrage of winning the Presidency, set off a fiscal crisis, force him to take unpopular measures, and then ride the backlash to an even bigger majority next election.

But there is one natural limit finance by borrowing.  Over time, interest on the national debt will consume a larger and larger share of total revenue and gradually crowd out other items.  This happened to some degree with the Reagan deficits.  It will happen much more slowly now since interest rates are much lower.  But cutting revenues by a quarter should be a good way to get the process started.  The only problem is that, since it is gradual and not catastrophic, there is no way to control which party will control the White House when the pressure becomes unbearable.

And finally, Republicans will also no doubt move quickly to shut down any alternative energy sources that might reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and do their best to keep any other countries from cutting their emissions. With a little luck, they may be able to delay action on global warming long enough for it to pass an irreversible tipping point so that all attempts to stop it will be futile, so we might as well just keep burning fossil fuels.  Hurray!

In short, if Republicans gain the White House next year, I expect them to modify some of the crazy. But what even their saner representatives will do is bad enough.  They must be stopped.

Two Disturbing Tastes that Taste Terrifying Together

On the overall subject of partisan politics, I see a lot of articles on two basic subjects.

(1)  The Republican Party is stark raving nuts.
(2)  The Republican Party basically controls all levers of government except the White House, has an excellent chance of adding the White House as well, and the Democrats are powerless to stop them.

So far as I can tell, these are both true.  Republicans responded to their sweeping losses in 2008 by making the conscious, calculated decision to go insane.  They have been on a roll ever since.

Consider:  Republicans control both houses of Congress.  While the Senate appears to be up for grabs, the general consensus is that the House is solid Republican territory for a long time. This is not just the result of gerrymandering.  Any district system contains a subtle but inherent bias giving greater weight to rural and suburban districts over urban ones.  Democrats have no plan for overcoming this built-in advantage at any time in the foreseeable future.  Currently Republicans have unified control of 25 state governments while Democrats have unified control of only seven. And this is important.  National leaders grow out of state leaders.  One of the reasons Democrats maintained their dominance so long following the New Deal was their deeper bench at the state level.

Indeed, some have gone so far as to argue the the Republicans' advantage in superior organization, greater turnout in off-year elections, and well-oiled outrage machine are so strong as to give them dominance for the next 50 to 60 years.   

Possibly.  But I distrust predictions that far out into the future.  Republicans have two disadvantages as well.  One is the matter of demographics.  The share of the population that is white is declining and the share that is Hispanic is growing.  Younger voters are more Democratic and older ones more Republican.*

The other is that Republicans are stark raving nuts.  If they actually win control of all levers of government they are going to be faced with the dog catching the car problem.  When you have been handed the government on a promise to destroy it, what do you do?  Granted, insanity has been highly successful so far.  Republicans have made the government utterly dysfunctional, almost to the point of being non-functional, and then run on their opposition to that ungodly mess.  But what do they do when placed in charge of that ungodly mess?  Sure, people favor massively shrinking government -- unless they are personally inconvenienced by the process, in which case all bets are off.

But, some might argue, it is obvious that no degree of Republican misgovernment can possibly harm their political fortunes.  After all, the Bush Administration fought a ruinous war and ended with economic catastrophe, but that caused only short-lived damage to the Republican brand.  Governors Sam Brownback of Kansas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana basically sought to destroy the public school systems in their states, and while that proved unpopular enough to spark a legislative revolt, it was not so unpopular as to cost them any elections.  Nor did Republican misgovernment cost them any elections in less ideological states like Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, or Maine.

Still, if Republicans win full power at the federal level, they are more or less pledged to do some very unpopular things.  The activist base demands a root-and-branch repeal of Obamacare.  That will mean stripping ten to twenty million people of their health insurance.  Republicans are also more or less pledged to start phasing out Medicaid and Medicare, also very unpopular actions.  And the donor class would really like them either to cut Social Security or to turn it into a 401-k, either of which is generally seen as political suicide.  And they seem determined to start another war in the Middle East, with very poor prospects of a successful outcome.

All of which means that whenever the Republicans win the White House, they are going to be faced with a choice.  Either recover their sanity, or suffer the consequences.  Or, as Kevin Drum puts it:

This is the fundamental problem. British conservatives, in theory, could turn back the clock if they wanted to, but they don't. Their parliamentary system allows them to do it, but public opinion doesn't—which means that if they want to retain power, there's a limit to how far they can fight the tide. If American conservatives were in the same situation, they'd probably end up in the same place. Once they actually got the power to change things, they'd very quickly moderate their agenda. 

It's in this sense that our system of governance really is at fault for our current gridlock. Not directly because of veto points or our presidential system or any of that, but because these features of our political system allow conservatives to live in a fantasy world. They dream of what they could do if only they had the political power to do it, and they really believe they'd do it all if they got the chance. Thanks to all those veto points, however, they never get the chance. Full control of the government would disabuse everyone very quickly of just how far they're really willing to go, but it never happens.

Except that it very well could, if the Republicans win the White House next year.  And in that case they will be faced with a choice -- disappoint the base by moderating, or incur the outrage of most of the country (including much of the base!) by proceeding.

___________________________________________
*These trends are related.  One reason Hispanics are a growing demographic is that they are younger that average.

Reflections on the Republican Primary

I understand the conventional wisdom that Marco Rubio will be the Republican nominee. Conventional wisdom went something like this.  There were three candidates who represented the Republican establishment -- Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker.  It was assumed that one of them would be the nominee.  Well, Scott Walker's campaign went nowhere until he got the message and dropped out.  Jeb Bush's candidacy is giving all evidence of tanking.  That leaves Rubio as the last establishment figure standing.

Challenging these establishment figures on the right are the Christian Coalitions candidates -- Ted Cruz, Mike Huckaby, Rick Santorum, and Bobby Jindal.  But these are presumed to be too crazy, even for Republican primary voters.  Challenging them on the left are the blue state Republicans -- Chris Christie and John Kasich.  But these are clearly too sane to have a chance.  And then there are the non-politicians -- Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina.  Conventional wisdom (mine included) was that these would meet the same fate as a wide range of Republican sensations last time around -- after a brief moment of glory, these would crash and burn.

Reality has not been cooperative.  Trump's lead endured much longer than it did last time around.  It has finally begun to fade, only for Carson to come to the forefront.  Apparently I was wrong when I expressed hope in the last primary that in Sarah Palin we had reached Peak Clueless.  Trump and Carson are basically male Palins, holding up their cluelessness as proof of virtue.  Both essentially say that you should vote for them because they don't understand all these complexities the Washington types keep throwing at us, and they will fix everything with plain old resolve (for Trump) or virtue (for Carson).  

A note to the Republicans.  If you must choose a non-politician as your candidate, could you please, please, please, please, please pick Carly Fiorina?  I don't know if she is any better qualified to be President than Carson or Trump, but she certainly could not be any worse qualified.  And she has at least one qualification that I consider very important in a candidate.  She appears to live in the same reality I do.  Carson appears to inhabit a completely different reality from the one I live in.  And Trump does not appear to see any need for reality whatever -- just tell whatever lies people want to hear and who cares about the consequences.  And at least one aspect of inhabiting the same reality I do that motivates Fiorina is that she appears to recognize that a President has to have at least some basic knowledge policy.  Trump and Carson, Palin-like, hold up their policy ignorance as virtue.

And if I were absolutely force to choose between Trump and Carson?  Between a candidate who inhabits a parallel reality and one who sees reality as a nuisance to be ignored?  In other words, between a knave and a fool?  The question there has to be, how knavish and how foolish.  In both cases, extremely.  Yes, I know all candidates lie to some extent, but I have never seen one as brazen, pandering, and completely indifferent to reality as Trump.  Carson thinks he understands reality, but understands a reality extremely parallel to the one most of us live in.  Trump does not seem to think that dealing with reality is part of a President's job at all.  And given that choice, I think I would very grudgingly prefer the candidate inhabiting a parallel reality to the one who has no use for the concept of reality.  Carson might eventually deal with reality if beaten over the head with it hard enough or often enough.  Trump's reaction to reality seems to be to lie and hope that it goes away.

The Latest Election

And in the latest election, the Kentucky Republican for Governor has been elected on a promise to shut down the state's insurance exchange and cancel the Medicaid expansion, i.e., to strip 400,000 Kentuckians of their health insurance.  And general news sections I see at Aol and Comcast, as well as Facebook feeds, seem a lot more interested in the endless saga of Kim Davis, the Kentucky County Clerk who refuses to issue same sex wedding licenses, the rejection of marijuana legalization in Ohio and Houston's shocking rejection of an anti-discrimination ordinance that would (among other things) guarantee the trans-gendered access to the restrooms of their choice.  Poor people being kicked off health insurance -- no biggie.  People who wear dresses but have penises being barred from the women's restroom -- intolerable.

In fairness to our media, Matt Bevin, the Republican candidate may have placed more emphasis on championing Kim Davis than on ending the Medicaid expansion.  To be fair to the media, they may very well think Bevin is so much hot air and will not actually act on it.  And apparently his latest position is okay, he won't actually take insurance away from Kentuckians already on Medicaid, but he will block anyone else from signing up.  After all, the governor of Arkansas promises to repeal his state's Medicaid expansion but the latest news apparently says that he is trying instead to get a waiver to make it more punitive.  Bevin may well go the same route.  And since, by all accounts, the Kynect exchange is popular, destroying it would presumably run into opposition.

But honestly folks!  Same sex marriage affects the 2% of the population that is gay.  The alternative is drawing up wills, healthcare powers of attorney, joint title on property, etc. and getting most (not all) of the benefits of marriage, with some inconvenience.  Restrooms and dressing rooms affect the 0.2% of the population that is trans-gender -- and the 50% of the population that is female and may be uncomfortable with a biological male in such an intimate space even if s/he psychologically identifies as female.  Lack of health insurance affects over 10% of the population and can mean lack of access to a wide range of non-emergency medical care -- including the sort of care that prevents emergencies from happening.  This whole business says some disturbing things about a lot of liberal's priorities.